Wolbachia

Data Downloads

The Sanger Institute has been funded by Beowulf Genomics to sequence the genome of the Wolbachia pipientis endosymbiont of Culex quinquefasciatus, in collaboration with Dr. Steven Sinkins of the Department of Zoology, University of Oxford and Prof. Scott O'Neill of the Dept. of Zoology and Entomology The University of Queensland, Australia. Culex quinquefasciatus is a vector of human Bancroftian filariasis. The mosquito contains an endosymbiotic bacterium, Wolbachia pipientis.

The Sanger Institute has also been funded by Beowulf Genomics to sequence the genome of the Wolbachia-like endosymbiont of Onchocerca volvulus, in collaboration with Dr. Mark Blaxter of the Institute of Cell, Animal and Population Biology, University of Edinburgh, Dr. Mark Taylor of the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine, Dr. Achim Hoerauf of the Bernard Nocht Institute of Tropical Medicine, Hamburg, Germany, and Dr. Barton Slatko of New England Bioloabs, Inc, USA. The nematode Onchocerca volvulus is the cause of onchocerciasis (river blindness) in West Africa and Central America. The nematode contains an endosymbiotic bacterium related to the Wolbachia reproductive parasites of arthropods.

Published Genome Data

Wolbachia pipientis endosymbiont of Culex quinquefasciatus

The genome is 1.48MB in size, and was sequenced with a whole-genome shotgun approach. The fully sequenced, published, annotated genome is available from the EMBL/GenBank databases with accession number AM999887.

Wolbachia-like endosymbiont of Onchocerca volvulus

The genome of the endosymbiont is estimated to be 1.1 Mb, and will be sequenced from lambda clones identified by a clone-walking strategy. At present there are 6 contigs from 6 clones with a total size of 92.997 kb.

Shotgun and assembly data from these projects are available from our FTP site.

Bibliography

  • Genome evolution of Wolbachia strain wPip from the Culex pipiens group.

    Klasson L, Walker T, Sebaihia M, Sanders MJ, Quail MA, Lord A, Sanders S, Earl J, O'Neill SL, Thomson N, Sinkins SP and Parkhill J

    Molecular biology and evolution 2008;25;9;1877-87

    PUBMED: 18550617; PMC: 2515876; DOI: 10.1093/molbev/msn133

Related links

Data Use Statement

This sequencing centre plans on publishing the completed and annotated sequences in a peer-reviewed journal as soon as possible. Permission of the principal investigator should be obtained before publishing analyses of the sequence/open reading frames/genes on a chromosome or genome scale. See our data sharing policy.

Sequencing enquiries

Please address all sequencing enquiries to: pathinfo@sanger.ac.uk

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